Government Watchdog Group Revives After 5-year Break

May 25, 1986|By Rick Tonyan of The Sentinel Staff

A group that made its reputation by fighting Volusia County government has re-formed after five years of inactivity and its leaders say they are ready to resume the job of being watchdogs of the county council.

The group, called We The People Inc., has not yet decided what issues it will concentrate on, but some council members already say they expect to hear little from the non-profit foundation except carping about governmental actions.

We The People leaders say they have enlisted about 100 members since they began the reorganization about a month ago. They predict they at least will return the group to its original size of 800 members.

Critics of We The People contend that the group is loaded with members who never have accepted the 1971 home-rule charter that replaced five elected full-time county commissioners with an elected seven-member council and a staff of hired administrators.

The group probably will seize upon any issue and try to turn it into a platform for diatribes against charter government, the critics say.

''Certainly, there are people in the organization you could classify as anti-county government,'' said council member Jack Ascherl, who frequently locked horns with members of the original group. ''As a matter of fact, they've been 'anti' a lot of things.''

We The People members bristle at such criticisms, but they also say they expect some county officials to label them as knee-jerk opponents of charter government.

''I'm still not in favor of the charter, but I have learned to live with it,'' said John Gregory, a DeLand businessman and a director of the revived organization who helped found the original group. ''We have a negative connotation, but I don't think it's deserved.''

Gregory and other members of the original group say they can be proud of their history and optimistic about their future.

The group was formed in 1977, during the height of a controversy over the county's proposed uniform zoning ordinance. A section of that ordinance would have turned hundreds of parcels of land zoned for commercial uses into either residential or agricultural uses.

Owners of the commercially zoned land flocked to We The People. Although the ordinance eventually was approved in 1980, the council threw out the rezoning proposal.

Those who are reorganizing the group say they don't have an issue similar to the zoning ordinance that could be used as a rallying point. Some of them say they might want to arouse public anger over the council's new 10 percent utilities tax on the base rates of telephone, gas and electric bills. Others say they want to attack a proposal for impact fees on new construction to pay for road work.

Several say they might side with the council in a drive to get the Florida Public Service Commission to allow toll-free telephone dialing throughout the county.

Members say they will begin selecting issues during a meeting June 2 at the DeBary Community Center.

''We're going to get involved in anything that we think is good for the people of Volusia County,'' said Grover Ashcraft, a Pierson retiree and a director of the group. Ashcraft also was a director of the original We The People.

The heydays of the original group were between 1977 and 1981. After that, the organization had trouble finding a meeting place and eventually disbanded. Al Hayman, a Daytona Beach retiree who served as president in 1979 and now is vice president of the reorganized group, said he believes We The People's best accomplishment was killing a proposed bond issue to finance a new jail in 1981.

We The People sued the council after the $40 million bond issue was approved. The council had intended to back the bonds with all the non-property tax money in the county budget and then increase property taxes to make up the shortfall in the budget. Both the circuit court and the state Supreme Court agreed with We The People that the jail plans were an indirect and illegal tax upon property owners.

Although the group officially remains neutral in elections, We The People members have exercised political clout, particularly in the western section of the county. The group's founder and first president, Alice Cycler, was elected to the council in 1980. Another former president, Danny Gainin, was elected a commissioner of the West Volusia Memorial Hospital Authority.

This year, both Cycler and Gainin are running for the District 1 council seat and members of the group say their loyalties may be divided. The current District 1 member, John Summers, also is running for re-election.

Summers earlier served four years on the council and sided with We The People on several issues. Then, he felt the wrath of the group before Cycler defeated him in 1980.